Toward a Committed Musicology 

Franfois Lesure 

Musicology can no longer be taught as it was only thirty years ago; at 
least it should not be. In the first place, the domain of the discipline, until 
now relatively limited, has been enlarged, thanks principally to the develop-
ment of musical psychology, anthropology, and sociology. And, even if the 
purely historical point of view continues to predominate, the contemporary 
period tends more and more to be included in courses of study. In many 
European universities this change has taken place under the influence of 
student participation and has let in a breath of fresh air, thus narrowing the 
gap between abstract knowledge and concrete reality. (Is not the "aleatory" 
aspect of early music better understood thanks to the practice of some of 
today's young musicians?) 

The emergence of ethnomusicology represents an even greater enlarge-
ment, but in this case the evolution has been so slow that it seems discourag-
ing. Universities generally assign, at most, secondary status to this discipline, 
which continues to lean more toward ethnology than toward musicology, 
not only for methodological reasons but also because of the very attitude of 
musicologists who are trained in a historical approach. It seems senseless that 
today a university can train musicologists who have practically no knowledge 
of non-Western music. Moreover, no successful attempt has been made at 
congresses and symposia to bring musicology and ethnomusicology closer 
together, and it is not without surprise that I learn from recent forecasts about 
musicology in the year 2000, that no fundamental changes in this outlook are 
anticipated. Traditional musicology has everything to gain from a deeper 
association with this young discipline, whose method is less entrenched but 
more dynamic. Does musicology itself not also recognize oral tradition? 
Making frequent allusion to popular trends which exercise an influence over 
learned culture, musicology makes of them a sort of deus ex machina which 
avoids other explanations and furnishes hypotheses which, in the end, cannot 
be verified. 

In the second place, musicology is reaching a point where it might well 
rethink its methodology. Certainly, this method has proven its worth for 
bibliographies or catalogues, deciphering notational systems, or editing 
texts. It has only had to follow the models offered by history and philology. 
Can it be said, then, that musicology uses a method suitable only for the 
specific subject matter of music in order to arrive at the meaning of the art? 
Has it succeeded in establishing a system of symbols which shows us what it is 
that makes music different from the other modes of artistic or literary 
expression? The analytic methods used until now have been greatly over-
extended. They were too narrowly applicable, i.e., to a repertoire of the 17th, 
18th, and 19th centuries. Here, too, the development of contemporary music 
and the study of non-European music have made the inadequacy and overly 

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scholastic character of these methods obvious. Today, another distinct 
influence emerges from linguistics and structuralism. One must, of course, 
not consider this last to be a panacea and thereby reject all prior achieve-
ments. However, music can be considered a language, and it is fitting to 
study it as such, with the means which are proper to it. For more than 
twenty years, disciplines such as social anthropology, sociology, and psy-
chology have shown a vitality and methodological imagination which might 
induce musicologists to reexamine their customary approaches to their 
subject. One would like to see them develop a more active avant-garde which, 
without renouncing what is good, would jar the field out of its apathy and 
suggest directional priorities. Do the hesitations and digressions which the 
young field of musical sociology has experienced not also arise from the 
uncertain position of a humanistic science which has not adequately defined 
its objectives? The imbalance which exists between the accumulation of 
documents and editions and the classification of sources on the one hand, 
and significant ideas on the other, continues to increase. Thus the discipline 
still suffers from an ideological bankruptcy. 

There remains to be discussed briefly the organization of research in 
musicology, as well as the role of institutions which could aid it. Some 
progress has been made at the informational level, RILM being the best 
example. There is also the recently established International Center for 
Works in Progress, which one hopes will come to playa dynamic role. An-
other desideratum is greater effectiveness and better coordination in the area 
of university theses, at every level. Too often these seem to be assigned to 
students only in order to permit them to demonstrate their research ability. 
If solely academic, this exercise is done in vain. Students must realize very 
early that their efforts are of use to musicology. This is why, in suggesting 
research themes which sometimes depend on the stringing-together or 
collecting of data, their professors incur a serious responsibility. How many 
months are wasted in writing monographs destined to gather dust on 
university shelves as soon as they are finished, without any of their results 
having been published! Between rigid structure and individualism, there 
are many avenues which should permit musicologists the world over to work 
toward the same end. One could, for instance, follow the example of the 
scientists who initiated the International Geophysical Year and organize a 
certain number of seminars on the same subject in different countries during 
the course of a year. Without attempting to challenge the autonomy of the 
universities, this process would stimulate a spirit of competition on the part of 
teachers and students; at the same time it could lead to comparative studies 
and publications. 

For advanced researchers there are the traditional congresses of the 
International Musicological Society. Before World War II these were of 
considerable interest. But as the number of participants has grown, the 
effectiveness of these congresses has diminished, until they now resemble 
industrial fairs more than they do scientific meetings. It should be possible to 

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change their format to one of symposia, full-day study groups, or seminars. 
This idea has proven its worth in the United States and in Eastern European 
countries, in Wegberg as well as in Paris (C.N.R.S.): a limited subject, a 
small number of participants from different countries, and free discussions, 
from which the essential points are later published. At their next congress, the 
members of the International Musicological Society will have a chance to 
say whether they favor a greater development of activities in this direction. 

It is not by chance that these thoughts-very short, considering the serious-
ness of the subject, and a bit pessimistic-are addressed to young American 
musicologists, who represent, in overwhelming proportions, the future of 
musicology. To the prodigious expansion which this discipline has ex-
perienced in their country one hopes to see added a more concentrated 
striving toward well-defined objectives, toward an interdisciplinary enlarge-
ment of methods, and toward a more committed mode of thought. 

(Translated from the French by Leonie Rosenstiel) 

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